Is The World's Largerst Sunken Treasure off the Coast of Cartagena?

The colonial galleon San Jose, also revered as “the holy grail of shipwrecks,” has been found off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, announced Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos.

The ship was one of three ships that were a part of a Spanish treasure fleet carrying gold, silver, and gems. The prized possessions discovered in South America were on their way back to Spain, to help fund the War of Spanish Succession. The colonial galleon San Jose, the flagship of the Spanish Armada was not far from the Colombian coast when the ship was sunk by British warships. The event took place May 28, 1708 (Smithsonian).

Treasure hunters have been seeking out the shipwreck ever since. In fact, there has already been a legal battle over who has the right to salvage it. It is no wonder, since some estimate the treasure could be worth as much as $17 billion dollars. A prize that the associated press claims could very well be “the world's largest sunken treasure”.

The discovery was confirmed via Twitter by Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos. A press conference followed the announcement, Saturday Dec. 5 2015, offering further details.

“At dawn on Friday, November 27, feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, with the assistance of the Navy and of international scientists, found an archaeological site which corresponds to the [...] galleon San Jose,” explained Santos. "This constitutes one of the greatest—if not the biggest as some say—discoveries of submerged patrimony in the history of mankind.”

While the exact location of the lost ship has not been reveiled, the Colombian government has offered footage of the wreckage, which they gathered by robotic submarines. While the huge monetary value the ship's treasure may holds excites, for others the real treasure is the insight into the past the sunken ship could offer.